Carol Hagan
Transcending Prismatic Visions
By Michele Corriel
Images Courtesy Carol Hagan Studios
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"Antelope Shaman" Carol Hagan
Billings, Montana
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Carol
Hagan’s colors, kaleidoscopic and intense, pulse with pigment-drenched
shadows. This effect is what she’s known for. But three years ago she
turned from acrylics to oils; her intentions from second-hand subjects
to first-hand empirical knowledge, not only changed the immediacy of
the work, but the heart of her work as well.
Already quite
successful, Carol Hagan’s work had been included in the annual CM
Russell Auction; she’d been invited to show in numerous Western Art
shows, including the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale in Cody, Wyoming.
But a few years back Carol Hagan’s work turned a corner. Through the
mentorship of a now deceased painter, Hagan accessed her true voice and
scraped up the courage to listen to it. It’s easy to see the
difference, the line in the sand, so to speak. Her more recent work,
while still grounded in familiar concrete images, reaches beyond this
material, to the emotional thin wire connecting abstract feelings with
tangible figures – paintings within paintings.
Carol Hagan is now stepping fully into her art and it is an honor to watch.
“About the time I took my first formal painting class from Joe
Abbrescia I built a separate studio so I could have a workspace that
was well-ventilated, away from the house, and I could paint with oils,”
she says. “And wow, what an eye-opening experience that was because the
colors you can get with oils are unmatched. With my love of color it
was like being a kid in a candy shop. That’s when my work really
changed.”
But it was more than a switch in mediums. Hagan also
began to explore her subjects more deeply. She taps into her creativity
by connecting with the subject. One way she’s found of doing that is to
work with her own photographs.
“I work from photographs for
reference material, and I take all my own photographs now just because
if you’re working from someone else’s image, what connection do you
really have to it?” she says, her voice soft with a natural
storytelling quality to it. “I absolutely find it imperative to go out
and take photographs. I found that unless I was on location or working
from the images I saw firsthand, I was missing something. I needed to
be there, to experience what sparked me to paint it. It really helped
me to make that connection in the painting. And I feel my paintings
have become stronger because of it.”
Hagan prowls local horse
pastures around her native Billings, Montana, area and she makes
pilgrimages to Yellowstone National Park and to the Grizzly Discovery
Center in West Yellowstone, where she can get up close to the bears.
Using the photographs as a focal point she goes straight for the eyes,
a window into the essence of who and what the animal is conveying to
her.
“If the eyes don’t work the painting is not going to work,”
she says. Behind her hangs a portrait of a grizzly. Purples, greens,
yellows and oranges riot along the ridges of fur. But she’s right.
It’s the eyes. The eyes are the lodestar, the point of reference for
the rest of the painting. “It’s all about what’s in the eyes. As for
the color it’s more about what I feel should go there. It’s not a good
explanation but I don’t know how to say it any better.”
Certainly,
a moment spent in the company of a Carol Hagan painting attests to the
percussive outburst of colors, tying into an array of emotional
reactions.
“Yesterday I was painting a coyote and I was
struggling with it,” Hagan explains by way of an anecdote. “The main
color of it, I just wasn’t getting it right, and then I realized there
absolutely had to be cool colors. The ones I was using weren’t working.
So I went to turquoises and greens because I was trying to remember
what I felt when I was photographing it. It was night, evening-ish, and
I was capturing that. But a lot of people have asked how I get to those
colors. It’s all about the feel, how I want to remember the moment or
portray that particular animal.”
Hagan’s story, like a lot of
artists’, inspires. From grade school through college people told her
not to pursue her art. She listened. And she wasn’t happy. Not until
she made choices that were clearly and thoroughly her own could she
ever come to realize her true self, her creative self. Her colorful
self.
“My first memory of my love of art and color was a
children’s book my mother used to read to me about a bunny,” she says,
sitting in Visions West Gallery where her paintings call to passersby
from the window. “It is a very old book; I think what drew me more to
it than the sweetness of the story were the colors in the book. I know
it was my favorite because I was enthralled with the color. I was just
captivated by it. I wasn’t old enough to realize that it may have
opened doors.”
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"Old Bull's Winter Coat"
Carol Hagan Billings, Montana
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But her brother was the artist – mostly in pen and ink – who created realistic sketches Hagan could not dare to match.
“So
at a very early age I had the thought in my mind that if I couldn’t
draw as well as my brother I couldn’t be an artist.” She smiles now at
the thought. “So I never thought of myself as someone who could become
an artist. There’s another memory I have from first grade. I remember
coloring my pictures of animals in very bright colors. I remember being
scolded by the teacher because animals are not that color. And that
stuck with me. I thought maybe I shouldn’t do that. So I stopped. All
through school I continued to be drawn to very abstract and brilliantly
colored artwork, but I didn’t do any art in school.”
Instead she
directed her energies into sports. She became a long-distance track
runner, competing in cross-country, at both the high school and college
levels.
“I was very serious about it,” she says, looking back.
She doesn’t run anymore because of knee problems, but she stays active.
“My dad was my coach. I loved it. I think it really brought us closer
together. He was an athlete – a boxer – so he helped me to understand
what kind of discipline it takes to be an athlete and to excel not only
in athletics but in everything. I realize, as I get older, how valuable
that lesson is.” Hagan paints everyday; she’s very disciplined about
structuring her work time.
“It’s hard to balance that – you
can’t call up the creative side on demand,” she says. “Every day,
before I go into paint, I’ll stretch and relax, think about all the
pressing issues that need to be addressed. I’ll write it all down and
put it mentally aside, saying that all this will be addressed after I
paint. That method has helped me so that when I walk in the studio,
mentally, I leave everything at the door. I visualize suitcases and I
put everything in the suitcases and then I shut the door leaving the
suitcases outside. It helps. It does help.”
Abbrescia warned her to leave her daily minutiae out of the studio, to concentrate only on the work.
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"Five Spot" Carol Hagan
Billings, Montana
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“Joe [Abbrescia] hit the nail on the head when he said that to
focus as a painter you need to leave everybody and everything else at
the door because if they’re in your thoughts when you’re painting
they’re going to end up on your canvas. All your house payments,
you’ve got to get dog food, you name it – it shows up there and your
focus then is not on your painting. It’s got be the one and only
center of your painting; if you can manage that, you’ll find you’re a
better painter.”
Even when she went to college, she still didn’t realize her artistic nature. She majored in accounting.
She
laughs, “I know, it’s kind of odd that I studied accounting in college.
Took two years of it and felt like a fish out of water. I was getting
Ds – the very first Ds of my life – so I dropped out of school and I
got married.”
When her son was born, Hagan worked two jobs – as
a bookkeeper and a waitress – but she wanted to stay home with her son
and wondered how she could still contribute to the household and help
make ends meet.
“On a whim, and it truly was a whim, I started a
line of children’s clothing,” she says. “I drew some simple, cute
designs while I was doodling, took them to a sportswear company in
Billings and said I wanted to put them on toddler shirts and sell them.”
And she did.
“I
packed them up and took them to Big Sky, then all around Montana and
down to Colorado. I went to the Denver market, got a showroom. It felt
like for the first time in my life I had listened to what was inside of
me and I was on the right track. Why would I be doing something like
accounting? I hate numbers.”
Then the business became too
successful and ended up taking her away from home too often, so she
sold it, sold the rights to the designs and went to work as a freelance
graphic artist.
“Quickly I realized that the fast-paced life
of a freelance graphic artist was very wearing and I wanted to find
something that was just for me and not for a client,” Hagan says. “I
spoke with my brother when I first started to consider art as a career.
He was surprised because he didn’t know I had a passion for art.
Obviously I didn’t know it either.”
The first time she sold one of her own paintings she felt exhilarated.
“It
was like selling a piece of myself,” she recalls. “I think I sometimes
attach too much to things. It was at a local garden and home interior
store in Billings. And they were supporting local artists and offered
me a show. That was my very first show of paintings and two out of
eight sold. Wow. That event was very supportive of my decision to take
that leap of faith.”
But she didn’t hit the galleries and fine
art museums right off the bat. Hagan’s journey into the art world took
a different path. After the tee-shirts, Hagan began a line of greeting
cards and affordable prints.
“There is a different mindset
being a fine art artist versus that of a graphic artist,” she muses.
“The more I realize my dream of being a fine artist and to be
recognized and accepted into some of these museum shows alongside
people that are my idols, such as Kevin Red Star... I have to pinch
myself. That is the direction I want to go in. Coming from the
graphics/business side of it, there was that sense of how do I make a
living at this? It’s been an interesting journey.”
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"Bear Eyes" Carol Hagan
Billings, Montana
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Hagan says she will continue to do the high-end Giclee prints, in very limited editions.
“My
husband is a fine art printer and the only reason we do it that way is
to have absolute control over the quality,” she says. “The marriage of
our business with fine art is a great one. We both love what we do. My
husband is my business partner; I can’t imagine it any other way.”
However, it seems clear Carol Hagan’s sojourn is still unfolding.
“I
see my work getting more colorful,” she says. “I see it evolving all
the time. I look back on my work from two months ago and it looks
dated. And I like that. I like knowing I’m expanding my horizons, still
exploring.”
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